Chapter Text
Tip 5: If you appreciate something, it means you’re attached.
~~~~
“An invisible barrier…” Kinger observed placing his hand into the air like a mime, while Ragatha overlooked the drop. It looked SCARY, and death-filled. Ragatha tried to not overthink that last part.
“I never knew there was ANOTHER part of the map that was hidden behind here…” Gangle thought out loud, and the ragdoll nodded.
“I don’t think anybody did. It seems closed off to me.”
“You’d be correct! It’s likely that the other part of the map is a boundary break; an extension never meant for us players to encounter, since this is where the magic of game development is being tested out on! Hence;” he knocks on the glass-like barrier. “...An invisible wall!”
“There’s sure a lot going on in these kinds of things, huh?”
“Very much so. But if Caine and Pomni were swept by the currents of the river leading to this huge drop, it’s possible that they might’ve glitched through by complete accident.” Kinger surmises, which makes Ragatha’s head ache trying to understand what the old chess piece meant.
“.... How… would they even do that?”
“Through pixel-by-pixel missing collisions.”
“So you’re saying there’s a part of the barrier that’s just… completely bypassable?”
“ With enough force? Precisely. But we don’t know if it’s in a more exposed area such as a limited height, OR if you’ll have to clip through various props and environments in order to do just that.”
“That sounds PAINFUL and HORRIFYING….” Gangle whimpered.
The search party didn’t know what to do at this point. Gangle then spots a black, protruding stick that’s completely different from the rest of it’s surroundings. Curiously, she approaches it, and attempts to dislodge it from the rocks it was stuck on. Ragatha takes notice of what Gangle was attempting to do, and assists the ribbon girl. After a few struggles, the two manage to remove it completely, making the long object bounce around and roll in front of an unsuspecting Kinger.
Turns out, it was Caine’s cane that was stuck in between the rocks. Well that confirms that the ringmaster and the jester were here at some point, but wonder how it ended up in between there?
“... Oh! What are we doing here?” Kinger asks, and it seems that the king piece had reverted back to his usual mental state.
~~~~
She was SO confused now. Caine said they were on the OTHER side of the mountains! Had he actually found a way to get back to the circus without having to exploit the glitch of the barriers?? Yet… something about this doesn’t feel right. The layout doesn’t exactly match.
The tent she knew as her “new home” was perched on a higher ground. This was laid in a flat, open area. Not to mention, the whole thing looked… physically unfinished. Like it was under construction, with construction covers, scaffoldings, metal pipes and beams, bulldozer tracks on the ground… you name it. It reminded her of how Carnivals would set up shop temporarily on a location, before moving to another once they’ve done their jobs.
And for an area that’s meant to be low poly, the tent looked grander, more massive, and looked as if it had more polish to it, making it stand out very much against the rest of it’s surroundings.
Jeffery kept pointing to the entrance however, and Pomni swallowed a lump in her throat. As much as she didn’t want to, she ran to the direction of where the little fella was urging her to go.
Upon entering, this was truly the most MINDF#@!ING sight she had seen of all time. It really WAS the tent SOMEHOW, but it felt so empty, so barren. The lights were off, making the only source of light come from the opening of the entrance and giving off an abandoned look to the whole surroundings, some objects as she remembered them weren’t in place, or were in different areas with more scaffolding and platforms placed inside. The flooring was covered in gray and cyan tiles, instead of white and black. And worse of all, the place was crawling with disgusting BUGS that flickered in and out. She felt unsafe, she wanted to back out so badly.
But a part of her was… morbidly curious about this place.
Taking more cautious steps inside, she explored.
“GUYS?” she yelled to whoever could hear her, hoping that the faces she’d come to recognize would come popping out. “ANYBODY HERE?” She dragged the last syllable, admittedly with a twinge of desperation coating it. “HELLO?? SOMEBODY??”
“CAINEEEE?”
“THIS ISN’T FUNNY, YOU KNOW!”
“RAGATHA? KINGER? GANGLEEE??”
“...ZOOBLE?”
“J-Jax…?”
If anybody knew better, they would assume that Pomni was close to tears. Perhaps she was, as she desperately combed through the areas in search of any sign of life that she was familiar with. She remembered the hallway, the one that leads to their respective dormitories, and she comes to the door where she knew her own dorm was placed.
Or so she thought, because her “dorm” didn’t have her sad, moping icon. She fiddled with the door knob, but she couldn’t even turn it no matter how hard she tried. She checked for the other doors, and it was the same thing. Her fists clenched in frustration as the jester grumbled, she even ended up kicking one of the doors because she was on a literal dead end.
With Jeffery huddled to her closely, the duo kept going. And in one, far-off room quite separated from the rest of the tent’s contents and opening this strange, out of place gray door, Pomni only saw darkness, except for rows of lights, which confirmed that there was flooring in there. Jeffery’s pointing had become erratic, making Pomni guess that they must be close to Caine now. She continued, and while looking around, she actually sees the familiar silhouette of a ragdoll, and without much thought, she is overjoyed.
“RAGATHA! I WAS SO-……………?” She stopped in her tracks.
She fully took the doll’s features in.
A lifeless smile was etched on her face.
Her arms outstretched to her side.
She was standing upright, and unmoving.
Like a mannequin in a department store.
Her jaw dropped more and more, and a very huge sense of dread had started forming inside her stomach.
Everyone was here.
Ragatha… Kinger… Gangle… Zooble… Jax…
Her breathing quickens, and she looks away, only for this to be her greatest mistake.
She sees blue and red.
With cautious steps, she approaches… her.
She approached herself.
A character model of herself.
She couldn’t take it. There was a permanent smile on the impostor’s face. She couldn’t take it. Her arms were outstretched to the side, by default. She couldn’t take it. The fake remained unmoving in her stead. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it.
She clutched her head and started sobbing to her knees.
After all this time… She was a stupid, oblivious NPC?
Choked, hot tears fell from her face. She didn’t care how loud she cried, she didn’t care. She was a fake anyways. She didn’t know how long she remained there on the ground, letting out her grief. Jeffery was rubbing circles on her leg, the eyeball cooing to ease her somehow. It ever so slightly works, and she brings Jeffery closer for a hug. She could really use one right now. Her little friend points in a direction, and Pomni sighs. She didn’t see the point in continuing anymore, but she still stands up, her steps slow and without purpose.
She did see Caine in the distance though, he was doubled over a console as if struggling to keep his form properly. Despite how she felt, her pace quickened to rush to his aid. “… Caine… ?” Her voice was still strained from her crying. Caine’s posture straightens, and he immediately corrects himself to stand up straight and hides the console.
“P-pomni! What are you-” Caine hissed without malice, his hand on his stomach, his breath quicker than anticipated. Pomni solemnly looked to the side, also defeated. “I know the truth now.”
“... W-what truth?” Caine couldn’t help but ask in confusion.
“THAT I’M AN NPC CAINE! I’M A STUPID NPC WHO THOUGHT I WAS REAL!” She screamed, and Caine flinches again. To further emphasize her point, she defeatedly points her hand to the character model of herself, standing in place.
Caine was completely taken aback. The two stood in complete silence, only being filled by Pomni’s hiccuping sobs. “I already know, okay… You can stop pretending now. Just stop lying to me.”
“... Do you mean your debug room character player model?” Caine asks, and Pomni’s eyes widens, still bloodshot from having bawled her heart out.
“...Wh-what?”
“Pomni, we are in the debug room! This is where Duplicate Player models are stored for the REAL Circus, in case of emergencies! Come, come! Let me show you!”
He turns on the lights, and sure enough, it says “debug room” up above. The room was yellow gray-ish in nature, with black box maps making up the walls. Aside from that, there were also various interactable items that would be usually found within the Circus, like Ragatha’s cleaver, or Kinger’s “impenetrable fortress”.
They walk over to where the duplicates are, and up above it says “Player models”, which prompts Pomni to release a HUGE sigh that she didn’t even know she was holding. Caine suggests Pomni to face a random player model, and they land on Jax. Pomni was still unnerved in all honesty, especially since Jax’s player model had that permanent, unmoving, default grin. Touching the ground, Caine all of a sudden pulls out a console. He flips through many commands, and chooses “current player action”.
The player model then loads in Jax running in place, holding something invisible with a cheeky smile while looking behind his back, as he appeared to be dodging something. “See Pomni? This room is intended for bug fixing purposes! It’s to ensure that there’s not much life-threatening, immersion-breaking glitches that would prove to be detrimental for Players’ experiences while playing the game! And to serve as replacements, should your current bodies start to disintegrate, or encounter a bug!”
Caine then activates the command for ALL the player models, and they all simultaneously start doing the intended actions their respective players were doing. “Do you remember the first day you spawned in? This is where I teleport the buggy avatars, and debug them!”
Gangle and Ragatha’s models seemed to be in a worried conversation while walking (it was hard to tell without the sounds), and Kinger was looking all around, minding his own business as he took casual strides. Zooble however, was running angrily, and continuously swinging and attempting to grab at something non-existent. Pomni manages to connect the dots that Jax had provoked Zooble.
And when she looked at her own model, it was mirroring the EXACT same movements as she did, looking all confused with the tilt of her head and even scratching her scalp when she did the same.
“And you wanna know a FUN, FUN, FUN FACT? The players THEMSELVES can also feel what these models do!” Caine explains, and out of nowhere, he slaps Jax’s face.
~~~~
“CAN’T CATCH ME, SLOWPO-” Jax stuck out his tongue while running away, but was sent toppling out of nowhere like a ragdoll with physics, much to a shocked and horrified Zooble.
~~~~
Pomni blinked thrice as the Jax duplicate looked around confused, standing up. A devious idea crosses her mind.
“Caine, can I borrow your stick real quick?”
“Oh sure! What for?” He hands it over, and Pomni accepts it.
“This.”
She aims the stick and hits DIRECTLY in between Jax’s legs.
~~~~
There was a loud scream of pain that echoed from the circus tent, reaching to every corner of the digital land.
~~~~
“A-ah, my dear-!! While I am glad that you’ve gotten that out of your system now, we mustn’t abuse this!” Caine started sweating. “I only did it as a one-time example, and it was an entirely prohibited action!” He explained, and Pomni sighed.
“Oh well. That one was for the last two adventures.” Pomni felt slightly better now upon seeing how much pain the duplicate was in. She surrendered the stick back to Caine, and he happily accepted it back. Though, it was still scary to think that somehow, THIS room existed. Complete with duplicates of themselves, that acted like life-sized semi-voodoo dolls. To think that Caine could’ve done whatever he wanted to the model duplicates, too…
“This place was never meant for players, nor AIs to fully encounter! But since we’re past the barriers and we’re currently out of bounds, well…” He resets the duplicate models to go in a default A-pose, and all models snap back in place as if nothing had ever happened.
No. No, Caine wasn’t malicious. Pomni knew that much.
He planned extremely dangerous adventures, sure, but it was out of ignorance, and he was only following what he knew was “exciting” by default definition.
She looked over to her own character model though, and approached it. Hesitantly running a hand over the cheeks, she could feel the touch mirror to her own features. It was strange, and definitely WEIRD. But a part of her just wanted to console herself this way. She was glad that she wasn’t an NPC. She was relieved to know that she wasn’t just a program being executed in this place, and she was overjoyed at the fact that she IS REAL, despite everything.
At the end of the day, she was still her.
She couldn’t help but wrap her arms around her own 3D model. She closed her eyes, and imagined that she was being comforted this way by a reassuring figure. Who exactly? She doesn’t know. It just felt nice to feel being hugged without her own averseness making her skin prickle in alarm. She lets go, and pats her duplicate’s head. “Everything’s going to be okay…” She whispered.
Pomni turned her attention back to Caine, who was retrieving Jeffery, tickling the little fella before letting Jeffery return to his rightful place as Caine’s left eye. He blinks twice as his apertures readjust, and returns a soft, smiling gesture to her. He clears his throat, and fiddles with his walking stick, suddenly a little embarrassed.
“Ehem, if… you’d like, I can give you a full tour of the debug area? N-no pressure, of course!” He couldn’t even hide the fact that he looked like he reallllly wanted her to say ‘yes’, coupled with the fact that his optics shifted everywhere but hers, refraining from eye contact.
At this point, how could she even say ‘no’ to him and his antics. So with an amused eye roll, she tells him to lead the way, and she sees how much his entire form just lights up at her approval. He then runs up to one of the doors.
“This right here is the AI NAVIGATION, I believe!” He opens the door, and they both step inside. There’s countless AI models of NPC mannequins walking around, in a limited space called the “Navigation mat”. “It’s where the game tests out if randomly generated characters can walk around without getting stuck in an obstacle!” The NPC’s pathfinding can be seen on the ground a yellow line with a circle on the end to signify it’s destination, before coming to a stop, and doing an idle standing animation. It then recalibrates the algorithm to another random destination, and does the process over, and over again.
“What do you think?” Caine asks, and Pomni stutters. “O-oh, I think it’s… cool?”
… she’s trying, okay.
This answer overjoys Caine nonetheless, as he claps his hand excitedly, ushering them to the next door. Pomni sees a door that Caine misses, though. “What’s Neural Networking?”
“Oh that? That’s just how my “brain” works! Would you like to know ALL about it?”
“... Absolutely not.”
“To the next we go then!”
“And this is PROCEDURAL GENERATION!” He opens the door, which showcases various environmental props on a square, floating plane. This impresses Pomni though, and she tries to take a step inside, but is stopped by Caine’s stick. “I wouldn’t recommend that my dear, there are no floors in this room! You’ll end up falling through the entire world!”
“Oh. What does this room do?” She asks, a glint of interest present in her eye. “Well I’m glad you asked! This room helps build and simulate a randomly generated plane of environment, for when everyone’s out on their OTHERWORLDLY quests!”
“... So, this is where everything we see in our surroundings when we’re out adventuring comes from?”
“A simplified way of describing it, PRECISELY! You are getting the hang of this quickly! It’s how I am able to come up with new environments for adventures as quickly as possible! Snow, spring, summer or fall, there’s no limit to the generation aspect, nothing at all!”
He shuts the door, and leads her to another. “TA-DA!!! CHARACTER PLAYER MODEL GENERATOR!!!” He flails his arms around, as Pomni sees a blank model on a large, white tube in the middle of a dark room. Caine takes a step inside, and Pomni follows. “This is where YOU were born! Or to be more precise, how YOUR 3D MODEL was born!” He pulls out another console, and chooses ‘random’ in the commands.
The tube then generates the model into something else entirely; a pink retro-robot dressed formally in a black vest and tie, with a TV screen for a head. The shell of the screen had a pink-purple-blue gradient.
“There’s no set-rule on how this thing comes up with avatars, except for the fact that it has to be somehow related to a player’s psyche! And then once it’s done it’s MAGIC, it teleports you to home base; where your MIND and your AVATAR becomes ONE!” He squishes his own head, and Pomni’s brows scrunch up.
“W-wait. Are you saying- My own HEAD came up with how I look right now??”
“Yessssss, and NO!”
Well that’s just really confusing. Still, that was somewhat… interesting.
“Here we have 3D PROPS!!! It’s where everything you adorable baffoons can interact with that aren’t NPCs, are made and stored!” He opens the door, and it is just a NEVER-ENDING maze of shelves, with every item imaginable: furniture, weapons, decors, all that jazz. Though it does cause everything to lag, prompting Caine to immediately close the door on 2 frames per second.
“WELL THAT WAS CLOSE! Let’s not do that again!”
“Agreed…” Pomni was trying to recover from the overwhelming sensation of lagging and freezing in real time.
“This is SCRIPTING!!” Caine points, and he opens the door to a poorly-lit office-looking space filled with stacks of paperwork that reached so high up, you couldn’t even see the end of it. “It is where the scripts, plots, backstory lores, worldbuilding AND dialogue are made!” He grabs a piece of paper falling from the sky, and reads it’s contents. Then he shows it to Pomni.
“See?” Caine points to the specific line in relation to what he’s talking about.
Pomni squints to read, but before she could read the rest, Caine throws away the paper.
“PROGRAMMER CREDITS!! The very people who have brought The AMAZING Digital Circus to life!!” Caine opens the door, and all Pomni sees is a small cork board with very tiny names, that Caine had to pull out a magnifying glass.
What the- Who’s “Gooseworx”?? And what the hell is “GLITCH Productions”???
Pomni didn’t even bother finishing up on reading it.
Caine closes the door once more, and opens another one.
“The GAME ENGINE!” and sure enough, it’s rows of giant engines chugging enough smoke that it makes Caine and Pomni cough, and he closes the door. “PHE-YEW! That room’s got enough greenhouse gasses to permanently alter climate change!” Caine comments, but Pomni doesn’t get the joke. This doesn’t deter Caine, as he opens another door, the second to the last one on this long hallway of reality-defying video game features.
“And in here, we have SOUND DESIGN!!” He opens the door to a recording studio, with four dice men of color-coded varieties, sitting around. “This is where ALL the sounds in this world come from!” As if to showcase this, he starts moving the door back and forth repeatedly, and one of the dice-heads mimic door hinge squeaking noises with their own face.
… Or was it… coming from them?? This is so much MINDF#@!ERY for one day, that Pomni had to hold her face, her eyes switching to a scribbling mess, looking all dizzily.
“You… you’re not gonna throw up now, are you?”
“No-, No… I think… I got this…”
~~~~
“I don’t know whether I want to pity you, or laugh at you.” Zooble snickered, clearly choosing the latter.
The two were in the middle of the tent, where Jax was perched on the stage. The rabbitoid had an ice pack placed at his pelvis area, a tear leaving his eye and going down his cheek. Even just moving his legs to adjust earned him stinging pain.
“Sheesh, lay off it already! I get that this is my universal karma and all, but I still deserve to have my dignity intact!” He tried acting tough, but it was clear that he was utterly humiliated. Not only was his (technically) non-existent family jewels bruised now, his ego was also BEYOND shattered. And he didn’t even know what caused it!
Zooble placed a claw on their chin, in ‘deep thought’. “Hmm, do you really, though? You’ve done a lot of stupid S#@! In your lifetime here, that I think this is kind of deserved.“
Jax rolls their eyes, a dark tint of purple on their face as they grumbled. “I’m willing to bet this is Caine’s fault.” He shifts the blame to their missing ringmaster, and Zooble scoffs.
“Do you really think he’d aim THAT low in the first place? Besides, he’s not even here. What, did he suddenly turn invisible, slapped you in the face and hit you in the B@#!LLS?”
“Gee, I don’t know! The sky’s the limit!”
“Sounds like cope to me.”
“Okay then, genius. What do YOU think caused this to happen? Because I don’t remember you being ANYWHERE near me to do THIS.” He points to his crotch, hissing and half-sobbing when he accidentally shifts.
“I’d say it’s some kind of divine intervention.” Zooble sarcastically replies, a hint of mischief in their tone, absolutely drinking in just how broken the circus trickster was right about now.
Kinger, Ragatha, and Gangle all make their way back into the tent, not exactly looking cheerful.
“Well you three are looking worse for wear. And I’m assuming that’s Caine’s walking stick that you’re carrying.”
“Kinger thinks they’ve gone out of bounds… We couldn’t do anything else than just go back…” Gangle sniffled while explaining, her gaze questioning as she stared at the two. “W-why does Jax have an ice pack placed there?”
“YOU DON’T. WANNA KNOW.”
“Oh, you ABSOLUTELY gotta know.”
~~~~
Pomni had to lean to the wall for a moment, as she recollected herself. Caine waited patiently as the jester basically had to steady herself, her mind finally catching up to the information. “Okay… Okay.” She said in between breaths, once she knew there wasn’t any bile rising up to her throat.
“There’s a lot going on behind the scenes, huh?”
“Oh, that wasn’t even the half of it! We’ve only encountered a partial of the WHOLE thing as this is just the debug room, but… it does do a great job at summarizing what exactly happens beyond the curtains!”
Pomni had a newfound sense of appreciation for the Circus’s mechanics. While it was still all very weird, a look on what goes on everything they do in this world… from what items they interact with, to the very sounds that occupy this simulation, There was still a lot of effort and passion put into the development of this entire thing.
Though, it didn’t really help that Pomni’s mind ran on mostly logic, so having to experience all of that actively messed with her very perception of the Circus’ reality. She honestly shouldn’t be surprised. The Digital Circus was one H#@! of an enigma, the mere fact that it was able to trap 6 or more humans was telling enough.
“I thought you said you didn’t have access to this place. How come you know all this?”
“Ah! No, no! I DO have access to this place, as I need to keep things running neatly! But I don’t venture BEYOND this tent, nor have I accessed this place by foot, since I have no need to! And my very own code is not tasked to do so, either!”
“So, by sheer, pure coincidence, you found this place while following the diverging path of the river?”
“EXACTLY!”
Talk about being lucky. There wasn’t a lot going on in the grand layout of this world, even in the normal grounds –minus the adventures they go out on– so it was honestly believable. Although….
“What were you even doing in the debug room, anyways?”
“Ah- W-well…” Caine fiddled with his walking stick, a little unsure of how to answer. “I… tried looking for ways to… help us escape!”
“And…?”
“AND I’VE FOUND SO! In fact, now that we’ve discovered this, I think I may know a shortcut!”
“... Oh S#@!, for real?”
Caine grumbles disappointingly, arms crossed with his feet tapping onto the ground.
“Sorry. Force of habit.”
“Apology accepted, but YES! If this is an early version of the tent, then that means there’s an unfinished room somewhere in here that would lead us to getting to the other side of the map!”
She didn’t understand game development at all.... This is all so confusing. “I’ll have to remember to close that up later though, when we’re back safe and sound!” Caine muses, but nonetheless starts leading the way to exit the debug room.
“So, my dear, are you ready to go back?”
“Y-yeah. I think I am.”
She closes the door shifting her attention towards him, and Pomni couldn’t help but notice the way he kept his hand to his stomach though. It was as if someone punched him in the gut really hard.
“Are you okay?”
“W-why, I’m feeling brand new, my dear! Of course I am-” He doesn’t face her, but he does drop his hand to the side. Pomni’s brows furrow, but she hopes that he’s telling the truth.
(even though there’s a nagging feeling at the back of her brain that’s saying he’s hiding something)
The two keep traversing the bug-filled tent, with Caine advising Pomni to squish them with her shoe whenever she would encounter one near her. Which, she happily obliged, crushing the little pests with a satisfying CRUNCH. Caine taps at his chin as he tries to feel the walls, and knocks at the doors of the place, as if trying to look for a specific sound.
When one door sounded hollow, his eyes lit up and his shoulders straightened. Though, when he opens it, his entire form drops (as well as his jaw), looking absolutely horrified at what’s beyond it.
“ A-ah, w-wrong door…?” He timidly answers to whatever’s in front of him with a nervous smile.
… huh?
“M-my dear, please don’t fret when I say- RUN!!!” He makes a dash for it, and Pomni finally has the chance to see what’s beyond it.
A large bug creature resembling a giant centipede stared back at her, with 5 green eyes. It was salivating an acidic liquid, which melted the very floor it came into contact with. Pomni was absolutely frozen, she wanted to run but she couldn’t figure out why her legs didn’t comply. The ringmaster halts from his sprint, and looks back to Pomni, who had been acting like a deer caught in the headlights. He immediately comes to her aid, nudging at her with the stick he had been carrying this whole adventure. “POMNI!!! WE CAN’T STAY HERE, WE HAVE TO GOOO!!!” He flails his arms around in comedic panic.
When she still doesn’t respond, he doesn’t have a choice as he makes a split-second decision.
“FORGIVE ME FOR THIS!!” He yells apologetically, grabbing the poor jester by the coat he had provided for her. The sheer force of being dragged and carried like a kitten would be on the scruffs of their neck was enough for poor Pomni to snap out of her mental dilemma.
“Huh WHA-!!! AAAAAAAAA!!!” She blinks and screams, and Caine puts her down, as she joins in on the running. “WHAT THE H#@! WAS THAT CAINE?!?”
Caine couldn’t even blame her for swearing right now. “T-THAT MY DEAR, IS A VIRUS! AND IT SEEMS THAT I’VE FORGOTTEN TO TURN BACK ON THE FIREWALL AND ANTIVIRUS PROTECTION!” He tries explaining, and pushes Pomni out of the way with his stick in order to prevent her from being a bite-sized virus snack. Pomni cries out in pain from this, but nonetheless keeps running after she manages to get back on her foot. Only for the virus to block her path, forcing her to run in a different direction. The pest chases after her at dangerous speeds, and a stick is thrown to it’s face.
A whistle. “HEY BUG-FACE! OVER HEREEE!!! YOOOHOOOOO!!!” Caine comically hollers and slaps his own butt to taunt the virus into chasing him instead, which was a success. He yelps, running away as soon as all attention was on him. “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! TOO CLOSE, TOO CLOSE, TOO CLOSE!!” He jumps away and squeals in terror when the virus almost chomps down on his ringmaster buns, prompting him to cover it while running for his life. He sprints out of the tent, and the bug follows suit.
Pomni uses this opportunity to safely exit the tent, and sees Caine still being chased by the bug. “OH POMNI, I WOULD REALLY, REALLY LOVE TO NOT PRESSURE YOU INTO ANYTHING, BUT DO YOU MIND DOING ME A TEENSY TINY LITTLE FAVOR?!” He pleads as he runs at high speeds, and Pomni panics, putting her hands on her head.
“WH-WHAT SHOULD I DO?!”
“PLEASE FIND A ROOM THAT SAYS ANTIVIRUS AND FIREWALL PROTECTION WITHIN THE DEBUG EXPANSE, AND TURN THE SWITCH ON! TAKE YOUR ABSOLUTE TIME THOUGH, NO RUSH!” He squeaks again when the virus nearly bites him in half, and now he’s off to running into a different direction. The jester immediately heads back inside, looking door to door for something that looked like either a firewall, or an antivirus room. Hinges creaking and door knobs clicking, her frustration grows bigger and bigger when she doesn’t find what she’s looking for.
UGH, WHEN DOES IT ENDDDDD.
But finally, she sees a giant sign at the end of the hallway, saying “FIREWALLS AND ANTIVIRUS PROTECTION”, and she has never been happier upon seeing a sign on a door. Seeing a lever on the side of it, she flips it down, and the red blinking light on it’s side turns to green. She goes outside to where the ringmaster was distracting the unwanted pest. There’s a lot of damage now, low poly cart props have been thrown around, things glitching in and out of existence, and some of the grounds have holes in them exposing pure, binary code, likely from the creature’s corrosive saliva. Caine was climbing a tree, he was at the very top as he avoided the bites. “I WANT MY CODER BAHAHAACK!!!” He cries as he hugs the tip of the conifer prop in a desperate attempt.
“I DID IT, CAINE! I FOUND IT! I TURNED IT ON!!”
Unfortunately, this has the side effect of catching the Virus’ attention. She scrambles, flailing her arms as she screams for her life while running. “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!” There’s tears forming at her eyes as she jumps, runs and dodges the bites as best she can. Caine did his best to catch Pomni’s attention as soon as he was able to go down from his perched position, waving at her and calling out. “POMNI!! PASS THE ROPES! I HAVE AN IDEA!”
Pomni looked at Caine’s direction, and hurriedly took off the ropes looped on her torso, and tossed them as far as she could, to reach Caine. This was enough, as it lands near Caine’s foot and he throws himself to the ground to catch it quickly. He then started yelling for Pomni to head to the huge metal pipe props of the unfinished circus tent, and she sped up to the direction he told her to go. Essentially ducking and covering, the creature almost tore her in half if it weren’t for the majority of it’s body –save for the mandibles– were able to slip through the openings. With the monster trampling all around in blind aggression, Pomni huddled herself, to prevent the saliva from melting her digital avatar off.
The vines she tossed earlier then proceeded to get wrapped around the monster’s neck, and Caine is attempting to control it’s movements by pulling back whenever it goes for the lunge. He grunts as he struggles, driving the creature to run into multiple props headfirst, slowly causing it to get disoriented, and drop down momentarily when it crashes on the metal pipes. Caine then hisses and sucks in a breath when he gets chucked off from the force, but he immediately goes for the vines and tries to tie the monster down to the nails that held up the circus tent.
The creature attempted to struggle free, and they could hear the strain of the vines slowly getting snapped.
“QUICK! WE HAVE TO LEAD IT INTO THE ROOM!” Pomni nods as she leads the way, and Caine follows. Frantically popping back into the tent, the two steer themselves into the objective. The centipede-like creature breaks free from it’s temporary chokehold, and attempts to chase the duo down once more. Of course, their recklessness was without consequence, as some of the duplicate player models get flung all around, the props colliding with the physics and glitching through places they shouldn’t be, and even the other rooms such as AI navigation and scripting getting messed up.
But the duo makes it to the antivirus room in time, and when Caine opens the door, there is a huge drop, to a huge inferno wall in the middle. The virus, now spotting them from the end of the hallway, starts gaining in closer and closer.
“I DID NOT CALCULATE THIS THROUGH ENOUGH!!….”
Caine looks back to the virus, and back to the drop. He inhales, and faces Pomni.
“MY DEAR, WOULD YOU BE SO KIND AS TO GRANT ME PERMISSION TO TOUCH YOU?”
“WHAT THE F#@! DOES THAT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS SITUATION!?”
“WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME, AND I REALLY MUST INSIST ON THIS METHOD!”
Pomni looks back to the virus, then back to Caine. “JUST- SURE!! DO WHAT YOU’RE PLANNING TO DO ALREADY!” She closes her eyes, the thought already overwhelming her as she feels like her entire arm’s touching livewire. She then feels as if she’s falling.
The jester opens her eyes as her tears stung her vision, and she vaguely sees the monster flinging itself into the (literal) firewall, completely eradicating it. She barely sees Caine underneath her, holding onto her tightly before they hit the flooring with a hard crash.
